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Copyright fee hike averted

Access Copyright appealing tentative deal
January 18, 2011
By Aaron Zaltzman

The long-fought battle over copyright fees between Access Copyright and post-secondary institutions is continuing even longer after an interim agreement was approved by the Copyright Board of Canada.

Access Copyright, a group which acts as a distributing agency between post-secondary institutions and publishers, has been involved in a debate with schools for the last several months over how much it can charge for copyrighted materials like those found in course packs.

The previous agreement, which was in effect from 2004 to 2011, called for universities to pay Access Copyright $3.38 per full-time equivalent student, plus 10 cents per page for course packages, to be generated from student fees. For the new deal, Access Copyright has boosted that fee to $45.

However, Access Copyright has taken steps to avoid having to reach a new agreement with universities, opting instead to appeal to the Copyright Board of Canada to impose a binding tariff.

“They’ve asked for a huge increase in the fee that they’re collecting that we would have never have gotten close to in a negotiated deal [with universities],” Stephen Jarrett, legal counsel for Western, said.

Western law professor Samuel Trosow said under the old agreement, most of Access Copyright’s revenue came from the 10 cents per page for course packs. The problem now, he said, is that physical course packs are not as widely used.

“There are so many alternative mechanisms of distributing course materials these days, including on the internet,” he said. The new $45 fee proposal would ensure revenue for Access Copyright on these digital copies.

Many groups have opposed this new deal, among them the Canadian Federation of Students and the Canadian Association of University Teachers, who have filed an objection to the interim tariff and Access Copyright’s new proposal.

“It is too much, it’s too expansive and it covers things that aren’t copyright at all,” said David Fewer, president of the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Group, which filed the complaint on behalf of CFS and CAUT. “Access Copyright says that just because you’re in a classroom and asked to read [material] then you should pay for it again.”

Access Copyright’s appeal has put Western in a tough position. If the $45 tariff passes, it will apply retroactively back until 2011. This led to a decision in June by the university to impose a fee of $15 per semester on each student, despite no actual increase to the fee Western pays.

“If the eventual tariff that is imposed is less than what [the University] has collected, the money will be returned to students in some manner,” said Jarrett.

While some universities have decided to completely opt out of agreements with Access Copyright and pursue other means of accessing material, Western did not.

“We determined […] that we weren’t in a position to simply go without Access Copyright, and still be able to provide services to the students that we had been,” Jarret said.

According to Jarret, a working group has been set up to look for alternatives to Access Copyright.

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